is gemino decens honore
Pictis luxurieris umbilicis,
Et te purpura delicata velet,
Et cocco rubeat superbus index[69].

His book had selected the bibliomaniac Faustinus as a patron. Now, says
the poet, you shall be anointed with oil of cedar; you shall revel in the
decoration of both your sets of edges; your sticks shall be painted; your
covering shall be purple, and your ticket scarlet.

When a number of rolls had to be carried from one place to another, they
were put into a box (_scrinium_ or _capsa_). This receptacle was
cylindrical in shape, not unlike a modern hat-box[70]. It was carried by a
flexible handle, attached to a ring on each side; and the lid was held
down by what looks very like a modern lock. The eighteen rolls, found in a
bundle at Herculaneum, had doubtless been kept in a similar receptacle.

My illustration (fig. 10) is from a fresco at Herculaneum. It will be
noticed that each roll is furnished with a ticket (_titulus_). At the feet
of the statue of Demosthenes already referred to, and of that of
Sophocles, are _capsae_, both of which show the flexible handles.

[Illustration: Fig. 10. Book-box or capsa.]

I will next collect the information available respecting the fittings used
in Roman libraries. I admit that it is scattered and imperfect; but
legitimate deductions may, I think, be arrived at from it, which will give
us tolerably certain ideas of the appearance of one of those collections.

The words used to designate such fittings are: _nidus_; _forulus_, or more
usually _foruli_; _loculamenta_; _pluteus_; _pegmata_.

_Nidus_ needs no explanation. It can only mean a pigeon-hole. Martial uses
it of a bookseller, at whose shop his own poems may be bought.

De primo dabit alterove _nido_
Rasum pumice purpuraque cultum
Denaris tibi quinque Martialem[71].

Out of his first or second pigeon-hole, polished with
pumice stone, and smart with a purple covering, for five
denarii he will give you Martial.

In a subsequent epigram the word occurs with reference to a private
library, to which the poet is sending a copy of his works.

Ruris bibliotheca delicati,
Vicinam videt unde lector urbem,
Inter carmina sanctiora si quis
Lascivae fuerit locus Thaliae,
Hos _nido_ licet inseras vel imo
Septem quos tibi misimus libellos[72].

O library of that well-appointed villa whence a reader
can see the City near at hand--if among more serious
poems ther